Chapter 1:

A Horcrux of Necessity

Harry watched as the reality of their situation slowly dawned on Draco Malfoy.

He was pretty sure the blonde git had never woken up in a nondescript tent, bound in chains with a none too happy enemy standing over him. Harry supposed he should be amused, or at the very least feel vindictive as his supposed rival finally experienced what was, for Harry, a monthly occurrence. And yet all he could feel was remorse and no small amount of apprehension for what he was about to do.

"What is this, Potter!" Draco demanded as he struggled against his chains. "Release me!"

Harry ignored his commands as he placed the small, golden sphere on the end table he transfigured for the occasion. Even in the low candlelight he could read those taunting words in Dumbledore's curly handwriting.

"If you're trying to intimidate me you'd be better off getting Weasley in here." Malfoy joked as Harry quietly muttered the incantations over the Snitch.

Harry was honestly impressed at the other boys' - or were they both men now? - attempt at humor. They'd come a long way since that first detention in the forbidden forest. The Slytherin had developed some small modicum of courage. If only he'd developed it sooner. A lot of lives could have been saved.

"He probably would be more frightening as an executioner." Harry admitted as he double checked the list of enchantments he copied down from Secrets of the Darkest Art, and ensured the spells were still in place. "Unfortunately he's otherwise indisposed so the duty, as usual, falls to me."

Malfoy actually laughed at that. Not the usual sarcastic laugh, or the nervous laugh at his earlier joke, but actual heartfelt laughter. The kind he shared with him and Ron in the Slytherin common room so long ago, when he thought he was with friends. It was a far cry from his annoying, mightier-than-thou fake laughter he shared with the public. If he laughed like that all the time he really could have been the charming ring leader he always pretended to be.

When Harry turned around Draco's face contorted into understanding as his laughter died in his chest. Harry must have been a hideous sight. Five days without sleep delving into dark magic and trying to cram seven years worth of ancient rune knowledge into his skull couldn't have been good for his complexion. He hadn't looked in a mirror lately, but he imagined the dark circles under his eyes looked painted on.

"You're really going to kill me?"

He didn't bother answering the question.

"Why?"

He COULDN'T answer that one. How do you explain to somebody your intention to use them for a dark ritual? Somebody who always mocked you for your goody-two-shoes ways. That was leaving out his reasons for doing so. A few days ago he wouldn't have believed in the Deathly Hollows, yet he held two in his possession, unable to use one of them. The one he needed most. A year ago he wouldn't have believed in Horcruxes, yet here he was creating one.

"I saved you! I lied to aunt Bella for you."

Draco really wasn't good at the whole 'de-escalate a situation' thing. Harry thanked whatever god abandoned them that Draco never picked hostage negotiation as a career path.

"Fat lot of good it did for Ron and Hermione." Harry grumbled back as the last detection spell confirmed that the protections had taken hold.

"Oh come on! There was nothing I could do to protect..." Malfoy paused and seemed to actually consider his words. Would the wonders never cease? "Weasley? What happened to Weasley?"

Harry sighed as he sat on the edge of the sole remaining bed and looked his prisoner in the eye as he explained.

"The knife Aunt Bella - " He spat the endearing term " - used on them was cursed somehow. We couldn't stop the bleeding. He didn't make it either."

Malfoy's "Oh shit!" face was priceless. He almost wished Colin was there to memorialize it. That and the rapid eye movements as Malfoy seemed to read notes floating in the air. Harry wondered if he ever did that, visibly deconstructing new information and piecing it together with what he already knew. Probably, he decided.

Draco let out a long breath as his face showed the same resignation Harry had worn ever since Ron said his last goodbye.

"What incredibly stupid plan are you resorting to, Potter?"

Harry granted the blonde man a raised eyebrow. He took the invitation to elaborate.

"Granger was the brains of your group. That's always been obvious."

Harry nodded.

"And Ron was the heart. Without them I'm just this side of useless."

Draco laughed again, but it wasn't genuine this time.

"What does that make you? The soul of your trio?"

"Hey. You said it, not me." Harry answered with a fake laugh of his own.

It was true. Without them he was lost. With those two at his side he was indestructible. Getting that goblet from Gringotts would be child's play, and he was proof positive the three could come up with some scheme to get caught by Voldemort on purpose and get close enough to Nagini to get rid of her too. They'd probably escape with nothing but a few scrapes to show for the adventure. But they were gone, and Voldemort had the wand. Without them he was just a soul without a heart or mind to direct it.

How apropos was it that he was sacrificing his very soul for the cause today? The only thing he ever had to offer.

"Do I even want to know what you're doing?"

Harry shook his head.

"I'd rather just talk." Harry confessed. "We have a few minutes. Maybe we can get some closure?"

And like that the real laughter returned. Harry could actually see the joke this time.

"What? Trying to console me? Trying to relieve me of all life's woes before you send me off?" Harry had never heard so much venom in Malfoy's voice before. "Save it for when we meet up on the other side. We'll have all eternity in the fires to talk it out. I'm sure I'll get over it eventually."

This time Harry let out a genuine laugh of his own, just as the chicken timer went off. The one Hermione once used for cooking eggs and which he now used to time a human sacrifice.

"See you in hell then?" Harry offered.

Draco nodded, showing off that infuriating smirk.

"I'll keep a spot warm for you."

It was a promise, then.

They were both silent for the rest of it as if in a state of utter peace. Draco looked so relaxed as the killing curse ended his life, and Harry didn't even scream when he cut into himself. He did scream when his split soul left his body.

People say your life flashes before your eyes when you die. How they'd know this was beyond him, but that's what it was like. It was as if his memories, his experiences and the emotions behind them, were cut into film and played before him, becoming dull and grey as they ceased to be his. Maybe it was his mind attempting to conceptualize what was happening but he could actually see the parts of him developing like moving photographs, and they were burning.

Not all of what made him, well, him, left in that moment. But enough of it did. And it hurt more than any wound or epll ever could.

Good thing the rest of the ritual didn't require him to be conscious.

"Hedwig, stop. I'll feed you later." Harry grumbled as the sensation of flapping wings on his face woke him up.

She always used to do that when he slept in, the impatient thing. How the normally nocturnal raptor started joining the noisier birds outside in harassing him was a mystery, but she did always manage to get him out of bed.

Except he wasn't in a bed. He was on the hard ground beside Draco Malfoy's corpse, and it wasn't Hedwig fluttering about.

"Huh. That's an unexpected development." Harry mumbled as the Snitch flitted about his face.

It worked. He had hoped that making into into a Horcrux would give the piece of his soul control over the internal mechanisms. That it would have enough control to bypass Dumbledore's enchantments and open. He didn't dare expect it to be able to fly by its own, intelligent will. Not that it was a competition, but he thought all of Tom's Horcruxes combined paled in comparison to this sole container of his, at least in mobility. The diary probably had it beat in communication, but barely.

Well... That sucked.

"It sure did." Harry said to the Snitch as the writing faded.

He wasn't a stranger to talking to himself, but this took it to a whole new level. At least the writing on the Snitch was in his own hand and not in the infuriatingly neat calligraphy of the late headmaster. And the new messages sure beat 'I open at the close'.

We should get you healed up.

Harry waved the concern away and gave the Snitch - himself? - a 'give it to me' motion.

"It's time to find out if this was anywhere close to the realm of being worthwhile."

As his Horcrux opened and deposited the dark, cracked stone in his hand he knew it was. No price was too high to pay to get them back. And fate saw fit to only demand his innocence. That and a testicle, but he was equipped with a spare so he hoped he wouldn't miss it too much.

Author's notes:

1) This was just an idea that I couldn't get out of my head and decided to bang out in a few spare hours. I wanted to think about what objects Harry would use to create his own Horcruxes in the hypothetical event he would follow in Voldemort's footsteps. This was the only believable scenario I could come up with where Harry would go through with it. Ron and Hermione died at malfoy manor and Harry escaped with draco in tow.

2) I chose to go with self mutilation being the unspeakable act needed for creating a horcrux instead of the killing a pregnant woman theory.(Or the easily disproved theories of it being cannibalism or necrophilia.)